Kinaesthetics

Kinaesthetics is the study of body motion, and of the perception (both conscious and unconscious) of one's own body motions. The perception of continuous movement (kinesthesia) is largely unconscious. A conscious proprioception is achieved through increased awareness. Kinaesthetics involves the teaching and personal development of such awareness.

Occupational therapy and physical therapy based on movement-associated awareness has been applied in the Western world since the mid-1980s, especially in Central European care facilities. It makes use of the psychophysiological finding that greater muscle tone reduces proprioceptive sensitivity.

Kinaesthetics may benefit patients who need:

Kinaesthetics was developed in the early 1970s by Frank White Hatch, who was a choreographer and dancer. Hatch studied behavioral cybernetics at Madison/Wisconsin and developed academic programs for movement and dance called Kinaesthetics in three American universities. He then turned to working with disabled children as well as the field of rehabilitation. Psychologist Lenny Maietta developed a handling-training program for young parents that was also based on behavioral cybernetics. Hatch & Maietta taught and worked together in German-speaking countries beginning in 1974. With the dancer John Graham, they held workshops under the name of Gentle Dance.

Maietta & Hatch used Kinaesthetics-seminars the first time as therapy in the Ernest-Holmes Fachklinik in Germany 1974-77. Together with registered nurse Suzanne Bernard Schmidt, Maietta & Hatch developed a job-specific program "Kinaesthetics in Nursing." They were in dialogue and exchange with Gregory Bateson, Moshe Feldenkrais, Berta and Karel Bobath, Liliane Juchli, and Nancy Roper. In addition to behavioral cybernetics and dance, movement therapy and humanistic psychology were named as key sources of kinaesthetics.

Maietta & Hatch are still actively involved in the development of Kinaesthetics. In the last years, programs for caregivers, for workplace health and for older people especially were developed. Currently there are four organizations in which Kinaesthetics-programs are developed.

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